Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Vampires Don't Make Sense.

Take my hand as I explore the reasons why I don't understand how vampires function (with the help of some of my friends.)

First of all, a disclaimer:

I'm just saying: Have you ever watched True Blood? I don't know when I've ever seen so many beautiful people on screen. And so many six packs. Helloooooooooooooo bare male torsos.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a big vampire fan, though. I never watched "Buffy" or "Angel" or anything like that, but I did read a lot as a kid. And I read a lot of vampire stories. Sure, I started out reading Nancy Drew, but then I jumped right to R.L. Stine's Fear Street books (the "scarier" version of Goosebumps) and was absolutely obsessed with Christopher Pike's The Last Vampire series.

Oh, Sita. You were the original dark and twisty character that I fell in love with. And the first vampire that piqued my interest-- which brings us to a few questions that I have:

*My friend Jonny pointed out to me that being disgusting doesn't necessarily keep zombies from being a sex machines, as demonstrated in this disturbing clip from "Dead Alive": http://www.youtube.com/wat​ch?v=2T8PWUgrVeA. Seriously, watching that made me want to puke.

And then there's the question of vampire deaths. Vamps are some tough mamma jammas.

So how am I supposed to believe that pesky little things can kill them off? Vampire lore is expansive and inconsistent, and there are about a million weird ways that vampires are said to be destroyed. They vary from convincing (decapitation!) to ridiculous (running water?). I found this fantastic chart comparing the top 50 vampires that covers vamp destruction in addition to other things (e.g., fangs, powers, reflections, etc): http://io9.com/5391215/top-50-vampires-the-ultimate-score-sheet.

And last but not least, the most adult of all things vampire that don't make sense:

VAMPIRE SEX.

Clearly, I watch "True Blood" so I'm not complaining or asking too many questions, but if vampires are supposed to be so damned sexy the topic needs to be explored.

Wikipedia has an extensive explanation of sexual reproduction-- feel free to visit it if you haven't had "the talk" just yet. What I'm interested in is how sex works:

So, if sperm needs to be a certain temperature, then it certainly wouldn't survive vampirism. Fine, I'll give you that. No vampire babies. That doesn't necessarily mean no vampire sex.

Beyond that, to get scientific some more, penises need blood to be erect and actually perform the act of intercourse. If vampires are dead, how does that happen? In True Blood they explain that vampires "are the blood" or however they put it, so I suppose even that makes sense. But that leads to another problem:

Gross.

Even if you can get past the necrophilia (I mean, they look alive, right?), there are other issues to deal with. Vampires are full of blood. Vampires can't make sperm. Ergo, when a vampire climaxes...

That makes that scene from "There's Something About Mary" even more troubling.

So many questions, but I'm sorry to say I offer only one answer:

Like I've said before, when I can't find a logical explanation for something, I know for true it must be magic.